Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

A fair amount of gear is involved in making a camping or

backpacking trip in success and choosing that gear can be a little

intimidating as there are lots of options and it's expensive to booth.

Here to offer some tips on selecting gear and getting the most out of it is Craig Coddle, an avid

outdoorsman, the director and lead instructor of the Nature Reliant School, and the author of

Ultimate Wilderness Gear, Everything you need to know to choose and use the best outdoor equipment.

Today in the show, Craig and I discuss some things to know when purchasing things like

boots, tents, sleeping bags and more, and we offer some specific recommendations as to the gear that's worked for us

respectively Craig also offers tips on using outdoor equipment including how to dry wet

boots without damaging them whether you should put a tarp under your tent what to do if

you get hot and sweaty or cold in your sleeping bag,

a hack for sleeping more comfortably on the ground, and the best kind of knife for an outdoorsman to carry.

After the show's over, check out our show notes at Awim.

I S slash outdoor gear. All right, Craig Coddle, welcome to the show.

All right, Craig Coddle, welcome to the show.

Oh, Brett, thank you for having me on on it's a pleasure. So you are a

backcountry skills expert and an instructor so you teach people out wilderness

survival. How do you end up doing that as a career? Well it's kind of a wild path to where I am now,

but I started out as a kid like a lot of people my age,

I'm in the mid-50s now,

and I was one of those kids where my mom said,

...